Contemporary soul band Durand Jones and the Indications capped off their national tour in Boston Saturday night

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Sunday

Apr 29, 2018 at 2:49 PM

If there wasn't a scene in those "Back to the Future" movies where soul music regains its prominence atop the pop charts, Durand Jones and the Indications are here to tell us there should've been.

Jones and the Indications are reviving and revamping classic soul music and gaining fans of all ages, as their show Saturday night before about 200 fans at Brighton Music Hall in Boston proved yet again. The band's 70-minute show was almost all either new originals, or covers so obscure the vast majority of fans would've never heard them, and the effect was galvanizing from start to finish. From patrons who appeared to be barely over the 18-plus limit, to some who looked as though they may have been around for Motown's glory years, Saturday's audience moved and grooved and broke into spontaneous pockets of dance fever during the 14-song set.

The back story of this band is almost as compelling as their music, as they hail from the University of Indiana in Bloomington. Jones himself had grown up in rural Louisiana, fell in love with music mainly through his family's gospel connections, and devoted himself to playing alto sax. As a music major, Jones graduated with a degree from Southeastern Louisiana University. Moving on to Indiana U.'s renowned music school for graduate school, Jones joined the university's Soul Revue, as a sax player. But when the regular vocalist couldn't make a show, Jones was drafted as an emergency replacement, and the audience loved him.

Jones and two of his cohorts from the Indiana U. Soul Revue began getting together to write and produce their own music, and drummer Aaron Frazer and guitarist Blake Rhein would become core members of the Indications. At the same time they were playing more and more local shows in the immediate area, and their popularity kept growing. By July 2016, they were ready to release their eponymous debut album, on the tiny Colemine Records, which they had scrupulously recorded on four-track tape for a total cost of less than $500, a fact they proudly proclaim. That led to a national tour and a rapidly expanding fan base.

Fast forward to today, and the band was on its third trip through Boston, capping off their latest national tour, and preparing to start a European tour which begins May 3 in Stockholm. Jones and the Indications are also releasing a deluxe version of the debut album, which comes with a special 7-inch record of two eclectic covers, 1967's "Put A Smile on Your Face" from EJ and the Echoes, and 1970's "You and Me" from the long lost Penny and the Quarters. This year also saw Rolling Stone point to the band as one of the "30 Best Artists We Saw at South by Southwest."

Saturday's lineup included Jones, Rhein, Frazer and regular Indications Kyle Houpt on bass and Justin Hubler on organ, with the added horn section of Jelani Brooks on sax and flute, and Kinch DeGrate on trumpet. The horn sections not only allowed for the group to expand and extend some its tunes with jazzy solos, but also added the classic soul ingredient of using the horns like an added percussion instrument, punctuating the lines and deepening the groove like James Brown's band did.

The show opened with the bright soul march "Because of You," with the kind of melodic hook that was a perfect foil for Jones' gritty vocals and charismatic stage presence. "Just Can't Let You Go" was a smoother and slower number, a buttery ballad enhanced by a brief flute solo seemingly floating in the ether. But there could be few comparisons for the performance of "Smile," a song that has a new video on the band's website and Youtube, as that tune's superbly in-the-pocket rhythmic foundation and enticing melody makes it an instant classic.

Drummer Frazer sang "Is It Any Wonder?" in a sweet falsetto, turning it into subtle sensuality of the type we haven't heard since the Chi-Lites shuffled out of the limelight. "Giving Up" seemed like a short trip to Memphis soul, with Jones' testifying vocal making the ballad the sort of heated yet cathartic experience Al Green used to provide. "Groovy Babe" really employed that horns-as-percussion element wonderfully, while Jones' vocal was harder edged, the kind of growling, shouting grit that evoked Wilson Pickett. "Yes I Will" was the kind of intricately arranged soul that was prevalent in the early 1970s, simply a gorgeous love song with plenty of gospel roots in its infectious chorus.

The horn section took a break while the core quintet performed "She's Gone to Another," and easy-bumping ballad that featured dual vocals from Frazer and Rhein, with both using their best falsetto to sell the song's plaintive theme. (Later, Rhein would tell us the song came from a group called The What-Nauts). But an original song about how flummoxed we all are when falling in love, "Can't Keep My Cool," was another triumph, starting as a swing-and-sway ballad and gradually bursting forth into a fiery soul anthem, with Jones issuing call-and-response "hit me!" choruses as the horns blazed away.

For their encore, Jones and the Indications delivered a home run, covering Curtis Mayfield's "If There's a Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go" at an accelerated tempo, with a hot flute solo, and then an extended trumpet romp that pushed the song out toward the 10-minute mark without losing any of its impact. After the show, Rhein noted that they'd based their arrangement of Mayfield's classic on a prison soul band they'd heard and admired, which gave the 1970s song a 2018 jolt of adrenaline.

Jones dedicated the final song to "all those who still make minimum wage," and "Make A Change" was the kind of stirring ballad, with gospel-like power and a syncopated beat that made it irresistible, that made you believe somewhere Otis Redding was smiling.